


Pâro

by amb-roses (buckshot_lariat)



Series: One Hundred Ways to Say 'I Love You' [5]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: 100 Ways to Say I Love You Writing Challenge, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Panic Attacks, Sappy Dean is Sappy, also sorta, ask to tag, it's mild but there, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckshot_lariat/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: 4. "Come here. Let me fix it."Roman stressed.He paced, wrung his hands, twitched his fingers and cracked his joints, readjusted his gear or beanie and hummed under his breath until all the nervous energy was released back into the world and he was back to the confident, self-assured Big Dog who ran the locker room.Sometimes, it wasn't that simple. That's where Dean stepped in, he supposed.





	Pâro

**Author's Note:**

> pâro  
> n. the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, “colder, colder, colder…”
> 
> another practice ish chapter, and apparently every title is going to be cheesy or something from the dictionary of obscure sorrows gejrdhuerjsdkj
> 
> anyway, lowkey tw for mild panic attack? ish? kinda? what?
> 
> cross posted from the main fic (first work in the series)

Roman stressed.  

He paced, wrung his hands, twitched his fingers and cracked his joints, readjusted his gear or beanie and hummed under his breath until all the nervous energy was released back into the world and he was back to the confident, self-assured Big Dog who ran the locker room.

Sometimes, it wasn't that simple. That's where Dean stepped in, he supposed.

“Oh damnit,” Roman hisses from down the dark hallway he’d nearly walked straight past. There he is, lurking at the back in a dark, dead end hall, pacing back and forth, yanking at his hair with sharp, strained movements. Redwood-sized motherfucker could be sneaky when he wanted to be. “Stupid hair. Damnit.”

“Hey, been lookin’ for you everywhere, Ro. Hidin’ from me or something?”

That only seems to stress him more, lines in his face deepening. Dean could see where his tied hair, usually slicked back and tightened into a perfect little bun, was in complete disarray. Like he'd tangled his fingers in it and pulled until little curls of hair had freed to arch out, small wavy strands tickling his forehead and trickling around his ears in small spirals, still dry and fluffy. His bun was even looser, smaller and hanging low at the base of his neck. Some of his hair had just straight fallen from it, a half-up half-down look, natural unlike what the hair and makeup fabricated in the people of the business.

Dean felt like he was looking at something holy, the face of the untouched Earth even at the ruffled condition of the usually put-together man. Natural formations of mountains and rock-granite in every curve, the bend of his nose, the strong, smooth cut of his jaw and cheekbones when he glances up. Scattered streams, rivulets, rivers in every loose strand and bunch of curling hair. The arch of royal trees towards the sky in every straighten of his spine, the stretch of plains over his skin as he fidgeted.  

Dean abruptly told himself to shut up and shut _that_ down.

Most important of all, Roman looked a second from falling apart, shifting in place with a heavy, distraught look. Dean moved slowly, taking his shoulders and walking him backwards to sit on a crate with solid, telegraphed movements.

When Roman breaks the brittle silence, Dean is casually, patiently, letting his palms warm the man’s arms as he ran his hands up and down them slowly. His voice is low and hollow, sending shivers down his spine at the void the words leave behind. 

"I can't do this.”

Holy shit, four words and he's officially spooked the unshakable Dean fuckin’ Ambrose. Good job, buddy. “Yes, you can.”

“I _can't.”_

“You _can,_ and you _will._ Isn't that what you told me, big guy?”

The words bring back memories, their conversation mirrored back with Dean digging his nails into his arms during an anxiety attack, knees to his chest in a bathroom. That same void, that same force ripping the air from his lungs, setting every faded scar ablaze.

“Dean. I can't do this. Every time I try... it's pointless.”

“Roman. _Ro,”_ he waits until he has the man’s eyes again. “If y'don’t wanna chase after him again, y' don’t gotta. Nobody’s gonna make you. Except Trips, but even he knows about burn out. But.”

“But?”

“I don’t think this is the end of it. I think–” He cut himself off. Roman didn’t need an opinion. He needed an ear, not a mouth.

“No, tell me. Even if I don’t like it, your voice is, it's nice. Grounding.”

He takes a moment to search the hall, listening for footfalls or soft breathing some sign of life. When he's sure the hall is clear, turns back with a single-minded focus. If he needed to do anything ever, it was this. Dean wasn't good at a lot, but he's about half sure at this point he was put on the damn planet to fuck people up and give comfort accompanied by dramatic speeches to Roman Reigns.

Dean leaned forward until he was pushing Roman’s thighs apart and pulling him close, almost holding him, and carefully unwrapping his hair tie from its messy bundle. The hair was silky and soft under his fingers as he ran them through it, dragging his blunt nails over his scalp with each slow pull. Comforting drags of his nails over his back with the other hand, anything he could remember his mother doing for him to calm him.

Roman went limp with a heavy sigh, leaning his forehead into his chest. The heavy lines disappear as he relaxes piece by piece, section by section. Dean inhales, exhales, inhales, and drops his voice to its low, natural timbre.  

A sort of deeper voice he only tended to use in hotel rooms and behind closed doors. Years of drugs, alcohol, all the stupid stunts he'd managed to make it out of, all resulting in a rough, deep chested rumble. Something he wasn't particularly proud of, unable to hit the high notes of karaoke, unable to hit _anything_ relatively high, actually, but enough to pass normally. A gruffness he knew relaxed or excited, that sparked shivers down spines.

“I think y’re powerful and strong, and I think it’s shitty that y' feel like you gotta try and be that leader for everyone. I think y’re burnt out from fighting Lesnar, think the deck’s stacked ‘gainst you. I think y’re strong willed, strong in a way that can’t be manufactured, strong in the way that matters, but that’s hard work too. I think you deserve better,” and the words catch in his lungs as he leans away, his fingers tangled halfway in the hair tie keeping him close as Roman met his eyes, wide and full of emotion and _life._

Seeing him. That look would never fail to make him breathless, the intensity, the genuine attention.

Dean's voice is softer, lower, pure bass and whispering breaths as he glances away. “I think y're bright and a sort of thing that wouldn’t, _shouldn’t_ have graced me in this lifetime. But you did and you’re probably the greatest thing that’s happened to me. To _them_. You told me you fought for that title, that championship because the Universe deserved a champ worthy of it.”

Dean tastes the words carefully, meeting his wide, attentive gaze again even as it sears him. This, he knows, as much as he's known anything in his life. “The locker room did, too. I think you need, _needed,_ to fight the title for yourself, too, but got lost in that unending pit of selflessness you have. I think if y'really wanna back down, that’s okay. They’ll call y' fake, but only because y're so larger than life people think you’re superhuman.

"You deserve it, but not at the cost of yourself.”

Roman stares and he shifts nervously in place, fingers mindlessly tangled in his hair as he holds the eye contact.

_“...Thank you.”_

“Oh hell, Ro, don’t cry.” Fuck, he messed up, said the wrong shit. Dumbass, idiot, absolute fuckin’ dumbass, bad. Bad Ambrose. Bad.

“Nah, Deano, happy tears, _happy tears._ You and your prose, what the _hell,_ man? You a poet in another life or some shit? Fuck.” He runs his wrist over his eyes a few times, touches hesitantly at his messy hair and Dean can feel himself get painfully tender at the motion.

 **“Come here. Let me fix it.”** Roman goes with Dean’s control again, pressing his forehead to his chest again as he fixes his hair. Not as tight or as clean as he did it himself, but close enough.

“Sorry. Not perfect, but I tried.”

A backward hand scopes out the bun before tangling in his own as it tucks and flattens a few stray hairs. Roman is wet eyed and raw, makeup-less and blotchy faced, and he's still as handsome, as _beautiful_ as the day Dean laid eyes on him. He looks tired, exhausted, but that light is back in his eyes. Dim, but present. He'd sparked it and Ro would rev himself up in time.

Time. All they had was time, and never enough of it. It was hard to think that just a handful of years ago he was spitting teeth and chugging alcohol like it was the end of the world. In a way he'd thought it was, for him. But now...

Dean can feel his own eyes beginning to burn and he pulls from Roman's grasp, leaning down to quickly wrap his arms around the larger man, pressing into his shoulder and tangling his fingers together behind his back despite the awkward angle.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says, pressing closer and memorizing every sense he can feel light up at the contact. “We both are. We’re gonna be amazin’, Ro. Have been and will be.”

“Yeah, we are. You and me, Dean. You and me against the world.” The end jumps like a question and he can feel his throat tighten with it. Dean leans back, still bound close by Roman's arms tangled around his waist.  

He doesn't bother to check for any passing eyes or ears this time, focused only on the other man, the singular, most important man in the world in this moment. He takes his face in his calloused palms and runs his thumbs over his cheekbones, tracing the frame of his face. Tracing features by clear memory, one if the only things his brain could cleanly remember without pause, soaking up the warmth memories and imagination couldn't recreate. To bask in all of it.

Dean smiles, genuine and free, lets their noses bump. Presses their foreheads together and breathes out into Roman. Always Roman, and also Dean, and always both of them together.

“Of course, Ro. Always. _Always.”_


End file.
